Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Hanukkah as written above is a festival of lights, the holiday commemorating the miracle of the oil that burned in the lamp in the liberated Temple in Jerusalem for eight days when there was only enough oil for one day. It is a festival of religious freedom and an celebration of an ancient Jewish feat of arms in driving the Hellenic Syrians/Greeks out of the land of Israel and freeing the nation to be Jewish again and able to worship freely.

The second miracle of Hanukkah is that the Jewish people have been eating latkas and doughnuts fried in oil for hundreds of years, yet we survive!

Now you don't have to be Jewish to enjoy latkes and sufganiot (homemade doughnuts! - think a Jewish variety of beignets for those of you lucky enough to have gone to Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans). However not being on a low fat, low carb diet is pretty much a prerequisite for enjoyment. Consult a physician before preparing and consuming the recipes below.

So in honor of the holiday I give you Natasha'a recipe for the epitome of the Hannukah Latka, and for Sufganiot. Indeed her recipes are the perfect embodiment of everything a Latka and Sufganiot should be and they're both very easy to make, and fun to cook and then eat.

This is Natasha typing.

There really isn't a recipe for latkas, but I will try my best.
1. Peel potatoes until you get sick of peeling (I would say 6 potatoes for the family of 4)
2. Get your newly seven-year old to cut them up while begging her to keep her fingers out of the way.
3. Grate them using your indispensable food processor. Grate a large onion while you are at it [don't grate them too finely].
4. Get your four-year old to crack a couple of eggs. Make sure all the shells are out of the batter.
5. Add salt and black pepper. Start adding flour or matzah meal until the mixture comes together (I added about half a cup).
6. Make the batter into pancakes and fry in lots and lots of oil until golden brown and delicious [have your husband do this, he's not scared of using lots of oil]. Blot on paper towers and serve and sour cream and apple sauce (home-made from apples you picked yourself, of course).

Okay, now for the sufganiot/donuts.
1. Go to the store and get fresh self-rising flour. Do not substitute any other kind of flour, and do not use last years - it has lost its magic.
2. Combine the following:
-- 1 1/4 cup self-rising flour
-- 1/2 cup sugar
-- 3/4 cup sour cream
-- 1 egg
-- vanilla
3. Deep fry in lots of oil.
4. Drain on paper towels and serve with powered sugar. Some people like to inject these donuts with jam, but while I was looking for the injector, all the donuts disappeared.

1 comment:

Oh man! Seeing (and tasting) stuff like this makes me wish there were a couple more times in Jewish history where the "Jewish Holiday Formula(*)" could be applied, just so we could have more yummy stuff like this to eat!